CRICKET ZEN

Mired. Its one of those nights. I’ll do my part to make insomnia’s life easy.

The cocksucker who lives beneath me snores. Snores. I MEAN HE FUCKING SNORES. I hear him through the floor, which is cement, the vents, which are closed, and the walls, which we do not share.

I hear HIM. Just him.

Him instead of anything else. Him instead of my wildest dreams. And most distressingly — him instead of nothing.

His name is Mr. Velasquez. I’ve never met him, just his mailbox.

Mr. Velasquez occupies a very particular sonic frequency, one that slices through the sound mix of my nights like a mosquito playing a guitar solo, a spinto soprano with his balls in a vice, flying his anti-social crop-duster in relentless sorties over the land of my mind. He breaks my sound barrier with the metro-nomical bliss of his heretical circadian rhythm, then rises and shines and shakes his well rested ass.

Its likely I’ve seen him during one of the many late night false-fire evacuations my building seems to specialize in, where I’ve imagined his face dissolving like a sugar cube in water and me gulping it. I’ve imagined it melting down the side of the building like ice cream along a toddler’s forearm, as everything that makes Mr. Velasquez Mr. Velasquez pools into a chorus of me cackling.

But mostly I yawn, overmatched by a day that hasn’t technically arrived yet.

I’ve yet to confess that I’m the one pulling the alarm. It’s my only break from him. I take what I can get.

I’ve tried compassionate thought-calisthenics dressed in Buddhist tights.

I bent my mind this way:

Be happy for him. He’s a single father of two.

An ex boxer. He took too many punches. His nose doesn’t work anymore.

And this way:

He leaves for work at five in the morning. He needs his sleep.

Just because you’re up all night, every night, doesn’t mean you should begrudge an erstwhile pugilist his rest and recovery.

Ease his pain.

But mostly THIS way:

I’ll kill him. He’s un-evolved. How do I get away with it? I’ll knock on his door, ask to borrow a cup of something and then shoot him.

I’ll say it was self-defense. It would be.

Environmental Noise Machine? They’re called that for a reason.

Bought one. Tried the ocean. He drained it.

Tried the rain. He drank it.

Tried the crickets, but he keeps them up too.